


Don't Leave Me Again

by flowers_and_lavender



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Platonic Relationships, Post-Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Post-Reichenbach, Pre-Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-08 02:13:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21468376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowers_and_lavender/pseuds/flowers_and_lavender
Summary: Two years post the Reichenbach Fall, John Watson has moved on (almost) successfully. But a chance meeting with a man on the street who reminds him of Sherlock sends John spiraling.Two years post the Reichenbach Fall, Sherlock Holmes is ready to come home, to one of the only people he truly considers family. But he has one more thing to take care of... and it might throw a wrench into his plans.There's some vague JohnLock there if you like; if you prefer their platonic relationship like my asexual ass does, that fits as well. Fill in the blanks however you like.Hi! This is my first time writing on AO3, and really just writing a true piece in general. Also I wrote this at 12 AM yesterday, so if there's anything funky that I missed when I was editing, kindly ignore it.Thanks for reading, loves!
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes & Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	1. Past and Present

As John walks through the outdoor market, he allows his mind to wander. He's gotten good at controlling himself, but today his thoughts lean toward… toward _it,_ and for once, he doesn't stop himself.

John's life has changed drastically. In the beginning, he went through life wondering why he was still there. On the best days, he felt emotionless and tired. On the worst… well, he doesn't like to think about those days. He doesn't like to think about how dangerously close to the edge he got, or how dark things were there for a while. He's gotten so good at forgetting, at ignoring the pain of his past, that the three scars on his arm from the worst days have faded, both on his skin and from his mind. John got a new job, one at an old nursing home; one that doesn't remind him of _him_. He got a new flat, he made new friends, found new bars to go to, doing whatever he could to forget about all that time he spent with _him_. He hasn't talked to Mycroft, or Lestrade, or even Mrs. Hudson in over a year. It gives him absolutely no sense of closure, and isn't what his therapist recommended. John knows it isn't healthy, but he doesn't care. He just needed to get away. 

And so he kept going. John kept living, and slowly, the pain faded to an ache. He has spent the last two years training himself to forget about it all: forget those great years of his life, forget the adventures he went on, forget the blood pooling around Sher--

John stops himself. That is not something he thinks about, anymore. He doesn't say or think that name. He doesn't think about _him,_ or that day, or _his_ words on that rooftop. 

_Goodbye, John._

No. No, those are events of the past, and he is in the present, now. John grounds himself before he can begin to spiral. He uses that old but reliable technique to remind himself that now is now, counting his senses and the things around him. 

_I can see a stand of fruits, a tall woman, a sign advertising a sale, ceramic mugs, and a big old armchair._

Sher -- _he_ had an armchair like that.

John shakes the memory off and continues. _I can hear a crying baby, a loud man with an American accent, the sound of a plane flying overhead, and a woman trying to sell her old rug. I can feel the ground under my feet, my soft sweater…_

John continues the mental exercise until he feels calm again. _What's in the past is in the past,_ he reminds himself. _Now, where are the coats being sold --_

Whatever John was thinking is cut off abruptly, as he feels someone ram into him with enough force to knock him to the ground.

He must have blacked out, but only for a moment. When he opens his eyes again, he's looking into the face of a concerned man reaching out to help him up.

"Oh, dear, oh, dear, I'm terribly sorry. Are you alright? You look as if you hit your head on the pavement, that can't be good…" 

The man wears a sweater vest over a nice shirt, and is tall, but has a hunched posture, as though he is shy. He is strawberry blond, and has light skin sprinkled with half a million freckles. "You're alright, it's fine, I'm sorry.." John says as he takes the man's hand and stands up. But he trails off as he meets the man's eyes. Those eyes -- blue and green at the same time -- they feel old, and familiar. They feel like home. 

John squeezes his eyes closed, trying to figure out where he knows them. Almost immediately, it hits him like a freight train. His own eyes snap open.

"Sherlo--" He looks around. But the strawberry blond stranger with a dead man's eyes is gone; disappeared into the crowd. And John is left blinking in the sunlight, his head and heart aching.


	2. Eyes

Sherlock hurries through the crowd. It requires all of his willpower to keep from looking back -- back at John.

John. Sherlock had forgotten how much he missed him; how much he missed his voice, his blue eyes, his smile. Sherlock can’t get John’s face out of his mind: the look on his face when he looked into Sherlock’s eyes and, for a second, there was recognition. And shock.

*

Sherlock lays sprawled across a couch in Mycroft’s office. The dark coloring reminds him uncomfortably of his time in the Serbian underground. Mycroft sits across from him at the desk, looking irritated.

“Why did you make contact with John Watson?” he asks, shuffling through the papers on his desk.

Sherlock shrugs. “I just… needed to see him.”

“Couldn’t you have waited a few more days? You’re nearly finished with Moriarty’s network. Seeing him could have jeopardized everything you’ve spent the last two years working on.” Mycroft slaps a folder down. It hits the desk with a thump. “What if he had recognized you?”

Sherlock hesitates, remembering the look on John’s face when they made eye contact. “I… I think he did.”

Mycroft leans back in his chair dramatically. “How? Did you take off your disguise, brother mine?” The sarcasm in his voice is palpable.

“I didn’t!” Sherlock snaps, shooting to sit up irritably. “I didn’t, and I daresay it was my best one in a long time! It took me an hour and a half to get on, but I still think he recognized me.”

“And how did he do that?” asks Mycroft. His hands are folded calmly on the desk, contrary to the impatience in his voice. “What makes you think he recognized you?”

Sherlock goes quiet for a moment, thinking. “I don’t know if he truly knew it was me or not,” says the detective, and his voice takes on a softer tone. “I don’t know, but… John was so shocked when he made eye contact with me. I think… I think he recognized my eyes.”

“Ha!” snorts Mycroft. “Well, you always were a romantic, brother dear.”

Sherlock flops backward, pouting.

“Just one more thing, Sherlock,” Mycroft says, and his voice takes on a different, strange tone. “Why didn’t you wait until after you finish that last mission to see him? You only need wait a few more days, and then you can go back home.”

Sherlock goes silent. “I think…” he starts, and trails off. “I just… have a bad feeling about it. I don’t know why. I just felt like I should see him… before. Just in case.”

Mycroft rolls his eyes dramatically, but says nothing. 

“Well,” Sherlock finally says, “if John really did recognize me, it probably gave him a bit of a shock. Legally, I have been dead for the last two years.”


	3. Engrained Into His Memory

John's walk home is shaky and turbulent, as he runs his mind over the events at the marketplace. 

Those eyes. They were… _his_… eyes. He'd know them anywhere. Hell, John isn't an artist, but he probably could have drawn them for you.

No. It couldn't have been _him_, there in the market. _He_ is dead. John visited his grave. He went to his funeral. He saw him in that casket. He watched _him_ take a step off that building and fall like an angel -- or a demon. He felt his wrist, already an inhuman temperature, still and lifeless --

John stops in the middle of the sidewalk, shocked, as a bullet of pain shoots through his leg. It aches like old wound ripped open again. No. It's been three years, nearly four. But it's back. 

As John walks up the stairs to his new flat, he feels rage begin to flower in him. Because he knows, he _knows_ that it's psychosomatic. But there's nothing he can do about it. He slams the door shut behind him, irate, and collapses in an armchair, suddenly exhausted. That damn limp starting up again, all because of some bastard on the street that looked vaguely like him.

For a while, John can't stop thinking about the stranger on the street. The man looked nothing like _him_, except for his height. And those damn eyes. It's been two years; how does he remember what they look like? He's tried so hard to forget, to forget everything: his quiet smirk; his dark, curly hair, and the way it stuck to his forehead when it was wet; that coat, that was so soft, brushing against John's skin when Sherlock touched him; and those eyes. They were like a kaleidoscope, green and blue and cloudy grey. John's tried to forget what they look like. But the memory of them staring up at him, lifeless and misty, from a face white as death, sprinkled with blood... it's not something one forgets easily.

The night of the encounter with the man that looked like _him_, John finally digs through the two boxes that he could never bring himself to unpack in this new flat. Carefully, he pulls out a tall, black, familiar coat. It isn't his, he doesn't deserve to have it -- but he brought it with him anyway. He supposes Mycroft ought to have it; _he_ is -- was -- his brother, after all He hasn't talked to Mycroft since the -- John swallows -- the funeral. He wonders if the man is doing alright. He's probably fine, though; John can't remember if he ever saw Mycroft express any emotion. And he sold _him_ out to Moriarty. 

Anger swells in his chest, and grief. Fuck, he misses him. He misses everything. He misses Sherlock, and his smile, and his sharp wit, and his hugs. John misses the way things used to be.

That night, John falls asleep on top of his covers, curled up with Sherlock's coat.

John's spiraled again, which would infuriate him if he wasn't so numb now. He hasn't visited a therapist in nearly a year, and he isn't going to start again just because some man on the street looked like _him_. Maybe the limp isn't psychosomatic. Maybe he just injured himself when that man knocked him down. He hopes so. Physical wounds are much easier to heal than mental ones.

A week or so passes, and John is finally able to return to normal. He's still angry that he was triggered. It has been two years; he thought he'd recovered by now. The idea that he's still so fragile that something as simple as a stranger's eyes could send him keeling again makes him furious.

But things return to normal. Except for that stubborn limp. It doesn't go away.


	4. Facade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock prepares for thE biG showdowN

Sherlock looks in the mirror one last time, doing his best to smooth down the unruly curls, although he knows it's in vain; they always pop right back into place, no matter what he does to them. Digging in his pockets, he checks to make sure he has everything he will need this evening: a gun; a small flip phone; a pocketknife, in case of an emergency; and a handful of wrinkled, folded papers. He carries them in the breast pocket of his button-up, waiting for the day he could finally take them out and use the information on them. The day he can go home. It appears that day has come. If only he can get through this one last mission.

Sherlock turns around and looks at his brother, sitting behind the desk in his small office. "It seems I am ready to go."

"Yes, it does," Mycroft muses, flipping through the papers in a file folder in a show of nonchalance. They both know it is a facade; Mycroft's eyebrow is twitching just slightly, and his eyes don't actually flit across the words on the paper. He is nervous, albeit slightly nervous. This final mission carries a lot of weight, after all; Sherlock needs only track down this final, small group of Moriarty's network. Multiple sources of Mycroft's have told him that the quiet, covert meeting will take place in warehouse (_How dull_, Sherlock thinks, _could they not pick a more creative location for such an important purpose?_) near a calm corner of the city.

Upon conducting some light research, Sherlock realized John's new flat was close by. Sherlock can't help but hope that things don't get out of control and disturb John, or his neighborhood. But he is certain things will go smoothly; all he needs to do is get in, kill the leaders of the final piece of Moriarty's network, and get out. Myrcroft's sources told him that the two leaders of this last, straggling piece of resistance, named Smith and Garret, are meeting to exchange pieces of information essential to their cause. What the information is wasn't clear, but if they were to be received by this gang, it could mean all the work Sherlock has done in the last two years will have been in vain. If Sherlock can get in and out quickly, killing Smith and Garret, as well as destroying the information, he could finally go home.

It should be incredibly easy. But something about this mission doesn't sit right with him. Or with Mycroft, judging by the way his eyebrow twitches.

The two remain in silence for a moment, then, abruptly, Mycroft says, "Sherlock, you're only there to do a job. Please, do not lecture, do not show off, do not do anything to draw things out. Just get in there, get it over with, and get out. Don't do anything idiotic."

Sherlock snorts. "Since when have I done anything idiotic?"

"I'm glad you asked, I have a ranked list; would you like to see it?" Mycroft retorts. "Number one is, oh, I suppose _jumping off a building_."

Picking up his coat and slipping his arms into the sleeves, Sherlock rolls his eyes. "I was fine."

"And how was I supposed to know that?" asks Mycroft, his voice going cold. "You didn't alert me for two weeks."

Sherlock stops. "Why, Mycroft, is that... sentiment I hear in your voice?" 

Mycroft is silent. 

Sherlock frowns, genuinely surprised. "Why, brother, I didn't know my death would affect you so."

"'Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side,'" Mycroft recites, leaning back in his chair. "Just... don't show off, or do anything to draw things out, understood? I can't afford to lose my best agent. Besides," he adds under his breath, "there's no use in showing off. We both know I'm the smart one."

Sherlock chuckles, and, adjusting his coat, opens the door to leave. "Goodbye, Mycroft," he says, without looking back, and leaves. And, from behind him, he thinks he almost hears a faint, "Good luck, Sherlock."


End file.
